Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Books and Boots: a post about Christmas presents

He said The Letter for the King is a foreign film that he really likes. He hasn't read the book, so I'm supposed to read it and tell him how it is. I'm excited to read the book (and was a little annoyed that my sister was hogging it while she was in town) and I'm excited to see the movie once I'm done.

Ransom also got me the Ever After High boxed set - yay! I read book one and enjoyed it, but hadn't got around to books two and three yet. My Shannon Hale collection is complete once again . . . if you don't count co-authored series or short story collections.

Surprisingly, we didn't get any books for the kids this Christmas. Maybe it's because currently my bookshelves are all out of order, and I kind of feel like I need to get a handle on them before going into acquisition mode. (I find my home library maintenance has several modes: acquisition mode, and thinning mode are the main ones.) I did intend to buy some books though. I bought a few good ones at goodwill the other day and meant to get back there without the kids and pick out a few more but it never happened. Maybe also the fact that we've had Bookroo for the last couple months curbed my book-giving impulse.

I did, however, get my dad a book for Christmas. It's Smart Money Smart Kids. That's so he can read it and teach me how to teach my kids about money.

Telling you that we didn't give the kids any books makes me feel like telling you what we did get them. I read a nice post by Janssen the other day where she talked about how there are a million gift guides on her internet around Christmastime. She said "I look at those and think, 'What did you ACTUALLY spend your own money on? (And did you really buy chocolate covered bacon?)'" I think my way of doing a holiday gift guide is much more practical than the typical, magazine style gift guide.

^ And that right there ^ makes me a fashion blogger! Tada! See how I just expanded like that? Boots, books, only one letter is different. I know, because I kept typing Books instead of Boots.

Now that Christmas is over, I'm very much looking forward to the announcement of the Cybils shortlists. I'm a round two judge in the graphic novels category this year, and I can hardly wait to find out what I'll be reading between Jan 1 and Feb 14. Especially because I know that the round one judges have already made their picks. At least, when I've been on round one we've always finished up before Christmas. The shortlist announcement will be on the Cybils homepage, as of New Years, and always has loads of good books for kids of all ages.

Did you get books? Did you give books? Did you have a meaningful holiday experience that has nothing to do with books? Comment, below.

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*psssh* "This is your captain speaking. A friendly reminder that shopping through links in this post generates affiliate income for the book blogger/fashion blogger/airplane captain. Please remain seated until the seatbelt sign above you turns off."